NBT points out that a feature common to emulsion fuels is that they can be used with minimal service and maintenance requirements in boiler plants.

The company offers stable and cost-effec-tive fuel emulsions. The production of these emulsions involves the use of chemical additives, a mechanical blending process and technical know-how, ensuring that the emul- sions are stable throughout the working temperature and pressure range. The benefits of using emulsified fuels are derived only if the emulsified fuel remains stable immediately prior to combustion. NBT’s technologies reli- ably produce stable emulsified fuels of consis-tent quality and standard, says the company.

Bank officials said this week that those effects are not considered a distant risk anymore, but rather are a near certainty “in our planning period” of the next 20 years or so.

In a study released Wednesday, the bank, for example, projected that major portions of Bangkok would be flooded by 2030. A flood control system built for Ho Chi Minh City only a decade ago is now considered inadequate and needs a $2 billion overhaul, said Rachel Kyte, the bank’s vice president for the environment and sustainable development.

The system “was built for a scenario that no longer exists,” Kyte said. “The investment they made is obsolete” for the sea level rise projected in coming years — about half a foot by 2030 under current projections, and double that a decade later.

World leaders have committed to try to curb greenhouse gas emissions enough to limit the global temperature increase to about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, or 2 degrees Celsius. A World Bank report last year projected that the world is on pace for an increase of perhaps twice that over the next century — potentially devastating water and food supplies in some parts of the world and leading to tens of millions of refugees fleeing a degraded environment.

But that dire prediction of a hundred years off still seemed “a long way away,” Kyte said, so the bank commissioned a follow-up report to look at what is likely to happen in the next few years as global temperatures move towards the 2-degree-Celsius increase.

The impact is substantial, and falls most heavily on less developed nations in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as parts of Asia most prone to flooding and harsh tropical storms.

In Africa, areas relied on for corn and other crops may become too arid to farm, and grazing lands could wither. Bank officials said they are hopeful that advances in crop science and genetics by then will have produced drought-resistant varieties of corn and other plants adaptable to the emerging environment.

In Asia, the threat is from too much water as seas rise, mountain glaciers melt, and intense storms overwhelm urban systems. Rising ocean temperatures and saltwater intrusion into rivers could ruin local fisheries — a key source of protein — in countries such as Vietnam.

The issue has become a main concern for World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, who sees it as a chief impediment to alleviating global poverty. The progress of the last 20 years, he argues, could be set back substantially if nations must devote resources to recovering from storms and natural disasters instead of investing in health, education and other services that could boost their societies.

As a result, Kyte said the bank is now focusing much of its planning in some countries on how to build infrastructure and re-engineer cities to better withstand environmental stress.

That might include elaborate dike networks to hold back the rising tide, holding areas that could capture water running downhill after intense rains, or measures to ensure that generators or other critical power equipment are moved out of basements and pumping or other systems are installed to protect major structures.

Among the world’s several development banks, funding for projects to help poorer countries battle climate change rose from $10 billion in 2011 to nearly $25 billion in 2012, Kyte said, and is expected to continue rising.

Anyone who has set foot inside a power station will be aware of what noisy places they are. Boilers, gas turbines, pumps, stationary engines - each element contributes to the general din.

Fans, notably the large centrifugal induced draft (ID) fans in thermal power stations, which pull air through the boiler before discharging the combustion-product gases up the stack, can be a particular problem, creating high and low-frequency noise that can vary with the speed of operation.

The traditional approach to reducing centrifugal fan noise (indeed any fan noise) has been to fit large and costly attenuators and to then encase the offending item and attendant ducts in barriers, enclosures, lagging and other 'silencing' apparatus. The noise remains but, in theory, is trapped. Such measures, still widely used as standard, can be expensive to install and maintain, and will often dramatically reduce the efficiency of the fan thereby increasing energy consumption.

However, in the last decade a new approach to tackling the problem of fan noise in thermal power stations has emerged. Quiet fan technology (QFT), developed by the Industrial Noise and Vibration Centre (INVC) in the UK, turns the traditional approach on its head. Instead of installing equipment to dampen the noise, QFT works by reducing the source of the noise itself.

The technology has felt its way in the biomass sector, but is eminently transferable to more conventional thermal power stations. Indeed, by reducing running costs and increasing the efficiency of ID fans, QFT could do much to contribute towards the push for greener credentials in fossil fuel-fired facilities.

Highs and lows of fan noise

To understand QFT we need to consider the noise it sets out to reduce. Typically, the problematic sound issuing from large fans in power stations is low frequency. All fans produce low-frequency noise (and high-frequency noise too), but the problem is worse with larger fans because of their reduced running speed - large fans have to be run at a slower pace than smaller units to avoid imbalances and to keep the blade tip speed down.

In contrast to high-frequency noise, the low-frequency noise is often tonal and capable of travelling much greater distances, and of passing effortlessly through the windows and roofs of nearby buildings. So, when communities living close by to industrial sites complain about the drone, hum or beating noise caused by large fans, the subject of their complaint is this low-frequency noise.

Primarily, the tonal noise comes from the turbulence and pressure pulses produced by the fan blades. The 'note' that is created varies with the number of blades and the fan's running speed. The casings, motors and vibrations in the connected ductwork can also produce noise, all of which, in the case of the ID fan, is pushed out into the environment through the power plant's stacks. Where more than one fan is in use, the variations in speed between the fans can create that strange 'beating' noise, sometimes audible for miles.

As mentioned, the traditional method of treating this noise has been to try and 'hide' the source. Attenuators (silencers) are placed in the ductwork leading to and from the fan, their 'splitters' working to absorb the noise as it moves away from the blades. Additionally, acoustic enclosures are fitted or lagging is wrapped around the fan housing and ductwork, again in an effort to keep the noise contained, whilst, often, the building in which the fan is housed is itself converted into an acoustic enclosure, helping to buffer the noise from the local environment.

Anyone who has set foot inside a power station will be aware of what noisy places they are. Boilers, gas turbines, pumps, stationary engines - each element contributes to the general din.

Fans, notably the large centrifugal induced draft (ID) fans in thermal power stations, which pull air through the boiler before discharging the combustion-product gases up the stack, can be a particular problem, creating high and low-frequency noise that can vary with the speed of operation.

The traditional approach to reducing centrifugal fan noise (indeed any fan noise) has been to fit large and costly attenuators and to then encase the offending item and attendant ducts in barriers, enclosures, lagging and other 'silencing' apparatus. The noise remains but, in theory, is trapped. Such measures, still widely used as standard, can be expensive to install and maintain, and will often dramatically reduce the efficiency of the fan thereby increasing energy consumption.

However, in the last decade a new approach to tackling the problem of fan noise in thermal power stations has emerged. Quiet fan technology (QFT), developed by the Industrial Noise and Vibration Centre (INVC) in the UK, turns the traditional approach on its head. Instead of installing equipment to dampen the noise, QFT works by reducing the source of the noise itself.

The technology has felt its way in the biomass sector, but is eminently transferable to more conventional thermal power stations. Indeed, by reducing running costs and increasing the efficiency of ID fans, QFT could do much to contribute towards the push for greener credentials in fossil fuel-fired facilities.

Highs and lows of fan noise

To understand QFT we need to consider the noise it sets out to reduce. Typically, the problematic sound issuing from large fans in power stations is low frequency. All fans produce low-frequency noise (and high-frequency noise too), but the problem is worse with larger fans because of their reduced running speed - large fans have to be run at a slower pace than smaller units to avoid imbalances and to keep the blade tip speed down.

In contrast to high-frequency noise, the low-frequency noise is often tonal and capable of travelling much greater distances, and of passing effortlessly through the windows and roofs of nearby buildings. So, when communities living close by to industrial sites complain about the drone, hum or beating noise caused by large fans, the subject of their complaint is this low-frequency noise.

Primarily, the tonal noise comes from the turbulence and pressure pulses produced by the fan blades. The 'note' that is created varies with the number of blades and the fan's running speed. The casings, motors and vibrations in the connected ductwork can also produce noise, all of which, in the case of the ID fan, is pushed out into the environment through the power plant's stacks. Where more than one fan is in use, the variations in speed between the fans can create that strange 'beating' noise, sometimes audible for miles.

As mentioned, the traditional method of treating this noise has been to try and 'hide' the source. Attenuators (silencers) are placed in the ductwork leading to and from the fan, their 'splitters' working to absorb the noise as it moves away from the blades. Additionally, acoustic enclosures are fitted or lagging is wrapped around the fan housing and ductwork, again in an effort to keep the noise contained, whilst, often, the building in which the fan is housed is itself converted into an acoustic enclosure, helping to buffer the noise from the local environment.

Indonesia yesterday accused Singapore of acting "like a child" over choking smog from forest fires in Sumatra that has triggered the city-state's worst environmental crisis in more than a decade.

The escalation in tensions between tiny Singapore and its vast neighbour came as haze levels enveloping the island hit a record high, shrouding the whole city.

As the acrid smell crept into flats and medical masks sold out, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said the crisis could last weeks and urged people to pull together.

The city-state ratcheted up pressure on Jakarta to take "definitive action" to extinguish the fires - but Indonesia, which insists that Singapore-owned plantations on Sumatra also share the blame, hit back.

"Singapore should not be behaving like a child and making all this noise," Agung Laksono, the minister co-ordinating Indonesia's response, said. "This is not what the Indonesian nation wants, it is because of nature."

His comments came as Indonesia's foreign ministry hosted an emergency meeting in Jakarta attended by Singapore's National Environment Agency chief executive Andrew Tan.

Singapore's air pollution index hit an all-time high yesterday, soaring to 371 at 1pm, well past the previous record of 321 set the night before. Any reading above 300 is "hazardous" while a reading above 400 is deemed "life-threatening to ill and elderly people," government guidelines say.

Lee declined to respond to Laksono's comments, saying he did not want to engage in "megaphone diplomacy".

He urged people to stay indoors and protect themselves from the haze which has hung over the island since Monday, asking citizens to "look out for one another". "We cannot tell how the haze problem will develop," Lee said. "It can easily last for several weeks and quite possibly longer until the dry season ends in Sumatra."

CBD pharmacies sold out of disposable masks and refused to take orders, as the strong odour seeped into homes.

Parks were empty of the usual morning joggers, but thousands of employees still trooped to offices and labourers continued to work on high-rise buildings.

"This is now the worst haze that Singapore has ever faced," Environment Minister Vivian Balakrishnan said on Facebook. "We need urgent and definitive action by Indonesia to tackle the problem at source. Singaporeans have lost patience, and are understandably angry, distressed and concerned."

Parts of Malaysia close to Singapore have also been affected.

Laksono said plans to use cloud-seeding to unleash rain over Sumatra were under way, and it was hoped helicopters could be dispatched today.

Smallholders and plantations in Sumatra - some of them with Singaporean investors - have been accused of using fire to clear land for cultivation .

Fueled by technological innovations and globalization, in the last two decades the world’s economic growth has lifted more than 660 million people out of poverty and has raised the income level of millions more.

However, such growth has too often come at the expense of the environment. As the world population has tripled and the global economy expanded tenfold over the past 60 years, our demands on planet earth have become excessive.

We have been cutting forest trees faster than they can regenerate, over-grazing rangelands and converting them into deserts, over-pumping aquifers, and draining rivers dry.

On our agricultural lands, soil erosion exceeds new soil formation, gradually depriving the soil of its inherent fertility. We have been catching fish from the ocean faster than they can reproduce, bringing about over-fishing in most parts of the world’s seas and oceans.

We have been discharging pollutants into the environment at a greater level than its assimilative capacity, resulting in widespread water pollution.

We have also been emitting carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) into the atmosphere faster than nature can absorb them, creating a greenhouse effect and global warming.

As a corollary of this carbon-fixing deficit, atmospheric CO2 concentration climbed from 316 ppm (parts per million) in 1959, when official measurement began, to 383 ppm in 2007. Conversion of forests, mangroves, coral reefs and other natural ecosystems into man-made ecosystems (e.g. settlements, agricultural land, industrial estates and infrastructure) combined with global climate change have destroyed plant and animal species far faster than new species can evolve, launching the first mass extinction since the one that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

Global warming and its concomitant impacts including rising sea levels, extreme weather, prolonged drought and flooding, heat waves and outbreaks of diseases will reduce our earth’s sustainable capacity to produce food, energy and other natural resources as well as to assimilate various wastes.

For example, a joint report by the FAO and OECD published recently reveals that the growth of global agricultural production is projected to slow in the coming decade, from 2.1 percent a year in the last decade to 1.5 percent annually from 2013 to 2022.

In summary, throughout history, humans have lived on the earth’s sustainable yield — the interest from its natural endowment.

But since the early 1990s we have been consuming the endowment itself. In ecology, as in economics, we can consume principal along with interest in the short run, but in the long run it leads to bankruptcy.

Actually humanity’s collective demand first exceeded the earth’s sustainable capacity in 1980, and in 1999 surpassed that capacity by 20 percent (US National Academy of Sciences, 2002).

In other words, humanity has been satisfying its excessive demands by consuming the earth’s natural assets, in effect creating a global bubble economy.

From an ecological and economic perspective, the US financial crisis in 2008, the economic crisis that has hit Europe since 2010, and the ongoing global economic slowdown are believed to be indicators that human demand for natural resources and environmental services has exceeded our earth’s carrying capacity.

Moreover, despite the gains from the world’s economic growth, 1.3 billion people still do not have access to electricity, 2.6 billion still have no access to sanitation, 900 million lack safe and clean drinking water, and 1.5 billion still live below the extreme poverty line (US$ 1.5/person/day) (World Bank, 2012).

This means that such economic growth has not been inclusive enough. Our growth patterns are currently not just unsustainable, they are also deeply inefficient and socially unjust.

Our challenge then is how to feed the rapidly growing population of the world, expected to reach 9 billion by 2050, to provide them with decent jobs and to bring 1.5 billion people out of poverty in an increasingly warming world? To meet such a fundamental humanitarian challenge, five courses of action must be taken and quickly.

As the rate of natural resource exploitation, GHG emissions and waste discharged into the environment is determined by population size and standard of living, the first action must be to stabilize the world’s population at 10 billion people by 2100.

According to a study conducted by Harvard University (2000), with an average income of $8,000 per person, our planet may be able to support a comfortable life for about 10 billion people.

Second, because the gap between rich and poor is so huge and has been widening, both within countries and between developed and developing countries, in the last two decades, rich citizens of the world must act responsibly with respect to environmental protection and distribution of welfare.

In practice global society must change its lifestyle, consumption and production patterns from those which are greedy, consumerist and wasteful into more green patterns.

It is noteworthy that, according to research on happiness, in countries with average incomes of between $10,000 and $15,000 per capita, further growth does not translate into greater well-being for their citizens (Layard, 2005).

Third, we have to change conventional economic growth into green growth. That is growth which is efficient in its use of natural resources; clean in that it minimizes pollution, GHG emissions, and other negative environmental impacts; and resilient in that it accounts for natural hazards including global warming and the role of environmental management as well as natural capital in preventing physical disasters.

In addition, such an economic growth has to be inclusive, ensuring that the economic pie of a country or the world is distributed to all citizens on a fair basis.

Fourth, green economic growth should be generated by the application of green technologies in every aspect of human life, particularly in the mining, agriculture, manufacturing and transportation sectors. Green technologies include zero-waste manufacturing, renewable energy and organic agriculture.

Finally, institutional arrangements, market mechanisms and government policies should be conducive for the implementation of such a low-carbon, resource-efficient and sustainable economy.